


soft desperation

by disgraceful (uppercase_disgrace0)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone: Amnesty (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, At Least Until Griffin Fucks That Shit Up, Canon Compliant, Canon Non-Binary Character, Fighting, Grinding, Groping, Hollice, Jealousy, Kissing, Lovers to Enemies (maybe back to lovers if I continue with this fic), Loving Your Babies means Hurting Them, Neck Kissing, Non-Canon Relationship, Nonbinary Character, Other, currently a oneshot but I might continue it, taz fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 07:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18442052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uppercase_disgrace0/pseuds/disgraceful
Summary: When Aubrey asks Jake to see if he can get any information from the hospitalized Hornets, Jake isn't expecting to run into Hollis.And Hollis isn't expecting to see him there either.





	soft desperation

Jake knew going to the hospital to check on the Hornets wasn’t a great plan. He hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place, but Aubrey and Duck… well, they were real good at making a man feel guilty if he didn’t do something for them. And, well, he’d thought maybe it’d bring a semblance of peace to him, knowing exactly what had happened. 

It hadn’t, of course. Seeing exactly how fucked up your old friends are after something that’s not quite your fault, but pretty much is- well, Jake knew it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to blame the Pine Guard for this, but there wasn’t a whole lot that did make sense about the situation. Not to him, at least.

He slipped out of the last Hornet’s hospital room- Delly Miller, who luckily was asleep- and made his way quietly down the hallway. The buzz of activity that must have been there the previous night when this all went down- all that was gone. The hospital was quiet, the empty halls barren of any life. It was like the white of the hospital walls had leached away any semblance of color. God, he hated hospitals.

He checked out at the front desk, the receptionist’s tired eyes glancing back down at her papers the moment Jake turned away from her. She’d had a long night.

Jake stepped out of the double doors of the hospital. He sucked in a breath of cold air, and then froze- he wasn’t alone.

Because Hollis was there, their back turned to him as they sat on the hospital’s front steps. They were smoking- a habit Jake knew Hollis had been trying to quit when he’d left them. He swallowed and turned to leave, pausing again when he heard Hollis’s voice behind him.

“I know that’s you, Jake.”

Jake turned around. His heart thumped wildly in his chest. At this point, there was no going back. Or there was, but he’d had enough of being a coward.

It was time for him to face them.

“Hey, Hollis.” Jake walked towards them and sat on the hospital stairs, a few feet away.

Jake hadn’t really had a chance to look at Hollis since he had left the hornets. There had been that one time at the slopes- but Jake wasn’t really paying attention to Hollis then. He was panicking, sure, but there hadn’t really been time to analyse Hollis themself. Plus, when someone’s covered in marshmallowy snow things, it’s hard to see much of anything.

Hollis wasn’t covered in snow things now. Their bomber jacket wasn’t zipped up- in fact, it lay mostly off of their shoulders, hanging around their elbows and displaying their black turtleneck. They’ve lost weight since last Jake saw them in normal clothes- they look leaner, hungrier. Jake had the feeling that if he were to place his hand on Hollis’s stomach- not that he would, not anymore- but if he were to touch their stomach, Jake’d feel solid rock. 

Hollis looked tired. Their eyes had circles nearly as dark as the eyes themselves, but Jake couldn’t tell how much of that was exhaustion and how much of it was makeup. Their black hair was loose around their shoulders, rather than back in the ponytail it was usually in. Jake’s fingers itched to comb through it.

“Why are you here, Jake?” Hollis finally asked after several minutes of silence. They finally turned their head to look him straight in the eye, and Jake felt his breath catch in his throat. It wasn’t fucking fair.

Jake glanced back at the hospital behind them. “I wanted to make sure you guys were okay-”

“Bullshit.” Hollis said, with a bite in their tone that made Jake whip back around. “You’re not a shitty liar, Jake, but you of all people should know you can’t lie to me.”

Jake ducked his head, staring at the stairway that continued beneath them. He did know that, but it wasn’t going to keep him from trying at least once.

“Aubrey wanted me to check out the hospital and see if any of you guys knew what happened to all of you.” he answered honestly. Then he mentally clapped himself on the forehead. He should have realized that saying that was going to cause more problems than it was going to solve.

Hollis laughed bitterly, stubbing out their cigarette on the concrete and leaning back to stare at the sky above them. The gray of the clouds seemed appropriate for the situation.

“What, that chick you were hanging out with on the slopes?”

“Yeah.”

“Why the fuck would she care?”

“She’s a good person?”

Hollis glanced over at him. Jake suddenly felt completely naked, ripped apart by Hollis’s gaze, and in another situation and another time, maybe he would have enjoyed the feeling. 

Right now, though, he felt self conscious- and like a complete fraud. He tucked a strand of blond hair behind his ear, trying not to meet Hollis’s eyes.

“So you’re dating her, then.” said Hollis bluntly, turning away from him to pull another cigarette out of the small box in the front pocket of their bomber jacket.

Jake felt his entire world fall out from beneath him.”What? No! She’s like a sister, Hol, I wouldn’t-”

“Don’t call me Hol. You lost the right to that when you left us.” Hollis shot back, scowling down at their hands as they tried to light their cigarette with a yellow lighter.

Jake shut his mouth. Sourness was beginning to build up in his stomach. He got to his feet, trying to escape the conversation.

“I’ve gotta get back to the lodge. Mama’ll have my hide if I’m not home for dinner.” he said.

Hollis got to their feet as well, pissed off. “And you’re such a mama’s boy, aren’t you?” they sneered.

Jake fell silent. Hollis stepped closer, till there were inches between the two of them. Hollis had always been shorter when they were in the Kepler Stunt Club, because they slumped their shoulders, but Hollis seemed to have kicked that habit and now stood just a bit taller than him. 

“Jake,” said Hollis, “I’m fucking sick of all the lies, okay? My friends died last night. I’m tired. I have a feeling that a big part of all this bullshit has to do with you.”

“I swear I didn’t hurt the Hornets-”

“I never said you did.” Hollis’s breath was hot on his face. Jake’s heart began to pound, but not with fear. Hollis’s lips were only a few inches away from his, and all he could think about was the last time they had been in a similar situation.

It had been at the lodge, up in Jake’s room. They’d been on the bed- they’d been there for for about half an hour, laughing about nothing in particular. 

And then all of the sudden Hollis had rolled on top of him and grinned down at him. Jake felt the skin where Hollis’s body was draped start to light up with anticipation. They were only a few inches away from each other, and suddenly those few inches became no inches as Hollis brought their faces together, kissing him. 

It wasn’t a particularly unusual day. There was nothing unusual about hanging out together. There wasn’t anything unusual about the kissing, though Jake might have said differently had someone asked.

The only unusual thing about it was how it was the last day that they had been together before they fought.

Before Jake left the Hornets, and irreversibly broke something between them.

Jake blinked, wiping the memories from his mind. Hollis was still there, only a few inches in front of him. And their gaze was softening, somehow, the bitter anger in their eyes drifting into something a little more manageable. They’d seen something in Jake’s face- a sadness, a regret, something- that was causing them to remember as well.

And suddenly they were kissing desperately, furiously. Jake opened his mouth and Hollis slipped their tongue in. He pushed his hands down Hollis’s waist, allowing himself the pleasure of drifting his hand across their stomach, realizing- yes, he was right, Hollis had been exercising- and allowing himself to be devoured by Hollis’s mouth.

Hollis’s own hands trailed up Jake’s chest, curling around gently and then giving him a slight shove that sent the both of them tumbling back against the hedge that stood by the hospital stairway. They bent Jake slightly backwards over the hedge, kissing their way down the side of Jake’s mouth to his jawline. Jake let out small puffs of hair, trying to hold back from whining. Hollis made their way all the way to his pulse point and bit gently, worrying his skin between their teeth, and then Jake couldn’t hold back his whine.

Jake’s hands traveled up and down Hollis’s back, eventually helping them shuck off their Hornet jacket, and they ground up into him, sending sparks shooting through his whole body. He felt Hollis’s hands traveling down his back and landing on his ass, squeezing and tugging in the way that they knew he liked, and maybe it was just because it’d been over two years but Jake needed this right now, needed it like he needed to breath.

And then suddenly they broke away from him, panting hard. They were red faced, and Jake knew he was as well, and he opened his mouth to try and say something- anything that would fix the situation and maybe get Hollis to come back to him- but they shook their head.

“I… four of the Hornets are in the fucking hospital, Jake, and we’re making out in front of it? What the hell is wrong with us?”

They grabbed their jacket from the concrete and stood back up. 

“I know you’ve got something to do with all of this, Jake. You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

“I…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll see you later tonight, I think.” They said, walking down the stairs, past which, Jake noticed dumbly, is their motorbike. “It’s going to be uncomfortable, Jake. I need you to know that I’m not going to rest until I have justice. Against whatever the hell tried to hurt them.”

And with that, Hollis started up their bike and rode off, farther and farther away from Jake until he couldn’t see any remnant of them in the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading my fic! I've been considering continuing it- let me know in the comments if that's something you'd like to see!
> 
> griffin can rip hollice out of my cold, dead fingers i love them so much
> 
> Edit:  
> I fucked up Hollis's pronouns quite a lot in this one, but thanks to some kind folks in the comments I was able to go through and (I believe) fix all the mistakes. Please let me know if I fucked them up again, and that if I did, I did not mean any disrespect against trans/nonbinary folks. I simply kept getting mixed up between Hollis's pronouns and Jake's, and since I really have no practice using they/them pronouns irl (I live in a very cisnormative culture right now) I fucked up quite a bit. As a fellow nonbinary person, Hollis's identity means a whole lot to me, and I am very sorry for messing them up. Thank you for reading!


End file.
